Hoping to get followers hanging on your corporate marketing words via social media platforms? You need to find out what people are using the social media platforms for before committing to marketing efforts and even staff for said social media platforms. Sometimes people just want to talk online with social media, not follow brands. That can matter if you want to enter China.

They’re also the focus of a new ad campaign from Facebook, launched earlier this month in Toronto and Vancouver — the only two cities in North America to see the new ad spots — alongside a similar regional campaign in the U.K.

Twitter users, come July, you will be allowed to post longer direct messages, the tweets that are privately sent to recipients. This can help in situations where a company might want a follower to send them a direct message concerning a product query or customer service matter.

Supposedly public Facebook pages-either I get a Not Logged In pop-up message today or I'm encountering the Captcha code entry screens.What happened to just typing in the Facebook page URL and being able to read retailer pages?

Twitter-news that the platform is rolling out GIF buttons on desktop, iOS and Android. Just the thing to add more content to tweets online.

Facebook is trying to figure out how to deal with Facebook pages after their accountholders have passed. There are many issues involved such as privacy, surviving friends and family wanting to maintain contact with the deceased's Facebook friends, who changes or closes the accounts after death and laws.

Sharing our thoughts and photos on social media sites has become a daily part of our lives, but what happens to your Facebook account when you die?

The tech firm recently said it tries to prioritize the privacy and wishes of the deceased, but doing so isn't always easy.

"These questions — how to weigh survivors' competing interests, determine the wishes of the deceased, and protect the privacy of third parties — have been some of the toughest we've confronted, and we still don't have all the answers," wrote Monika Bickert, Facebook's director of global policy management.

Remember, Facebook is based in California and there's a legal section that mentions that detail when you visit Facebook. How many Facebook users know the social media laws in California and what laws apply to estate matters there?

Given that now North Americans are preparing their returns to school and social media accounts are a key part of their daily lives, families need to discuss social media accounts and legacy wishes prior to the students' departures to school. This would be a good time to discuss the roles of powers of attorneys or living wills in your province or state if family and students are located in the same one or what may be needed in the other state/province if the student is not attending school in the same jurisdiction-laws may vary regarding living wills/powers of attorney (that in effect during the life of the person creating them until there is a change made to them or the person dies--at which point their assigned or deemed executor has legal control of their body and assets when court approval is obtained).

I can understand why Facebook is struggling with privacy versus requests to keep pages active or accessible to others. But laws exist. And so do Events options on Facebook. Why could family and friends not post on the deceased's Facebook page a link to a Remembering Event on their OWN Facebook pages plus a link to any obituaries or funeral home guestbooks along with a request to Facebook friends to keep in touch and add their remembrances on those links? This way, the deceased's Facebook page may have a short period of activity that is directed to other active pages. Personally, I'd like Facebook to require some kind of notice or do a 90-day cycle of keeping an account active after an accountholder's death then making the account a closed one without letting additional posts be added.

How to teach you to control their time using social media or their cellphones? Teach them to make cellphone cases with Velcro closures so everyone will know when you open the case to reach for your phone!

Some performing artists such as comedian Chris Rock require audience members to lock their phones away in a pouch they take with them into the show, O'Gorman said.

This ensures the full attention of the audience, and prevents bootleg videos from being made. The pouch is unlocked afterwards, using technology similar to stores as they remove anti-theft tags off expensive clothing after you've purchased it.

But that's pretty heavy-handed, O'Gorman says, and "doesn't teach any kind of self-control."

He has a different idea.

Next week, O'Gorman will be at St. Mary's High School in Kitchener for an experiment in unplugging. With some assistants, he will teach several hundred high school students to make their own "resistor case," in which to store their phones.